


And thank you for a house full of people I love.

by werepope (quiteparadise)



Series: 2014 Advent Calendar for a Filthy-Minded Athiest [8]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Babies, Domesticity, Family, Holidays, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-08
Updated: 2014-12-08
Packaged: 2018-02-28 16:43:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2739659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quiteparadise/pseuds/werepope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Liam & Zayn go home for the holiday.  There's food and family.  And a baby.  Don't forget about the baby.</p><p>A "What Forever Is" story.</p><p> </p><p>Advent calendar challenge: Children.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And thank you for a house full of people I love.

With all the aunts, uncles, and cousins come to roost in the Malik household for the holiday, Zayn and Liam opt to stay with Karen and Geoff. It's not much better there. Ruth and Tom have Abbie now – eight months old, her very first Christmas. Nicola was bringing Lucy home, may still be bringing Lucy home, depending on the status of their relationship come the actual date of arrival. It's going to be a full house no matter where they go, but at least at the Paynes' they won't be on an air mattress in Safaa's room, sleeping under the watchful eyes of her teddy bear collection.

And it's not as if the households won't commingle. Their families have been knit together since Liam and Zayn were in primary school. It would take an act of god to keep them out of each other's business. Liam's old room is just a bed and a place to store their luggage, really.

Just as well, too. There's not as much room for their luggage as Liam remembers. He eyes the stacks of plastic tubs all along one wall, his old desk repurposed for crafting. There are a disconcerting number of scissors, a whole long row of them, plastic handles making a soft-hued rainbow.

"Scrapbooking?" Zayn asks, setting his suitcase down beside the desk.

Liam sighs. "And card making."

"Oh, right." Zayn knew that. They got their christmas card from her a week ago. "Remind me to thank her."

"Mm. Later." Liam takes the opportunity of an otherwise empty room to put his arms around Zayn's shoulders, press a less-than-decent kiss against his mouth. They're going to have to be family friendly for the next five days. Might as well get in a little tongue while he still can.

Zayn spreads his hands on Liam's ribs, smiles against his mouth, and says: "Room bringing back good memories, Payno?"

It damn well should. They shared their first proper kiss in this room. Got each other off for the first time in this room. He sucked Zayn off for the first time kneeling right there on the floor. Fingered him on that bed. Fucked–

"Boys! Your sister's here!" Geoff calls from the foot of the stairs.

"Abbie's here!" Karen yells, and the sleigh bells hanging on the front door jangle as she throws it open.

Zayn rocks back on his heels. Liam drops his forehead against Zayn's shoulder and sighs. It was going to be so nice reminiscing.

"I love your parents," Zayn says. "I love your family. But sometimes this feels less like an in-law situation, and more like an incest situation."

Liam grimaces. "Would it feel less weird if we were actually married?"

"Oh please." Zayn pushes Liam off with a roll of his eyes. "If you don't think we're married, you're deluded."

Liam follows him down the stairs to greet Ruth and Tom, to get his turn at holding the baby and cooing over how adorable she is. And she is absolutely adorable. She looks exactly like Geoff, to the great amusement of everyone but Ruth, who started putting her in satin headbands to break the similarity. It sort of worked for a while. Now she's old enough to take them off the moment Ruth puts them on her.

There's a shuffle of luggage and then a jumble of hugs. Karen bogarts the baby for the first hour and a half. Ruth and Tom collapse, boneless with relief, on the couch and can only be coaxed into action with promises of tea (Tom) and a beer (Ruth). Zayn is glued to Karen's side on the couch, both of their voices pitched for baby talk.

Liam joins him once Karen finally passes Abbie over. She is so adorable. Her hair's fine and soft and pale. Her eyes are still blue, although general consensus is that they'll turn brown. She's powder soft and pink and all of her tiny little joints are chubby. Liam drapes himself against Zayn's shoulder to watch her face as Zayn tickles her neck. She squeals in delight.

"She's gorgeous," Liam tells Ruth, who has heard this about a dozen times since she walked in the door.

"You want her?" she asks, taking a pull from her beer.

"Don't say that," Karen scolds. "She's an angel."

"She'll be an angel when she sleeps through the night. Until then she is my gorgeous tormentor."

Karen leans over the back of the couch, hand braced on Liam's shoulder, squeezing. "The boys will just have to have their own," she says.

Judging by the way Ruth sputters with laughter, Liam's face in reaction to that must be just hilarious.

"Mum, we're not even ready for a dog yet."

Karen strokes his hair and Liam knows she's thinking about when he was Abbie's age. He's the baby. He gets to be the recipient of those looks more than either of the girls. He tries not to squirm.

"You'll never be ready," Karen says. "There is no right time to have a baby. You just do it anyway."

Geoff agrees, as do Ruth and Tom.

For possibly the first time in his whole life, Liam tries not to stare at Zayn, who scoots forward to the edge of the couch to set Abbie down on the carpet. She's not old enough to pull herself up or stand yet, but she can sit up on her own pretty steadily. He keeps a hand flat on her back, fingers pointing down the line of her spine.

"And she's off," Zayn announces as she rolls from her butt to her hands and knees, taking off toward Geoff.

Geoff climbs down out of his chair to receive her, and she hesitates, her eyes huge. Geoff stretches his arms out, making grabby hands, sweet talking her.

Zayn looks back at Liam and smiles.

They have dinner at the Paynes' but they go over to see the Maliks after. Tricia hugs them both together and then one on one, holding on practically until they wriggle free. Yaser isn't much better. Doniya and Wahliya and Safaa abandon more distant family to come over and get hugs of their own. Most of that more distant family follows in their wake.

Liam's arms feel noodley by the time they finally get away and head back to the Paynes'. If there were such a thing as too much hugging, it would come at the hands of the Maliks.

They're quiet on the stairs, aware of Abbie asleep behind one of doors and also of Ruth, whose wrath is dangerous even when she isn't sleep-deprived.

"Your mum invited me round to help with the cooking tomorrow," Liam says, safe behind his own door. He strips out of his jeans and follows Zayn into bed. They should probably shower while it's unoccupied. There's going to be a rush for it in the morning. But it's late and the drive here was long. It feels like the first chance they've had to rest all day.

"Give it up, babe. You're never going to make gulab jamun as good as hers. It's just not going to happen."

Liam presses his cold hands against Zayn's stomach. "One day, Malik, I will please you one hundred percent."

Zayn pulls him down, half cuddle and half threat. "Ninety-nine is more than enough." 

Liam settles against him in a way that won't make his whole arm go bloodless in ten minutes. He lays in the dark listening to Zayn go to sleep. He can't quite turn his brain off enough to get there himself.

Two weeks ago Zayn saw a posting on Facebook for a pit bull up for adoption, and they had the pet conversation yet again. They both want a dog, they just can't do it right now. They both make decent money now, but they work too many hours doing that. It wouldn't be fair to the dog. They even discussed a dog walker this time. But they'd agreed – no dog.

Liam had put on _Marley & Me_ and they'd both had a good sniffle over it. Problem successfully shelved, if not solved.

They honestly can't have a dog. Neither of them have the time. There's no way they could have a baby.

But maybe there is no good time to have a baby, as Karen had said. They aren't going to get more financially stable than they are right now, not in the foreseeable future, anyway. Their flat isn't huge but it's big enough that they have an office/guest room. It wouldn't take much work to make it a nursery.

That doesn't mean they had the schedule to stay home with a baby, but would they ever? They want kids. They'd had that discussion when they were at university. They both wanted two. Boys or girls, that didn't matter, but definitely more than one – only children had it so hard, and three seemed like too much.

At nineteen they talked about having kids, yet here they are at almost thirty with no plans to actually have any. 

Liam feels so heavy with it he aches.

He presses his fingers into Zayn's side, under the curve of his lowest rib. "Zayn. Wake up. What if my mum's right?"

Zayn groans and turns his head away, frowning, but Liam can hear him breathing. He's awake enough. Liam gets up onto one elbow to lean over him.

"She said there was no good time to have kids. What if she's right?"

Zayn sighs. "Li. In the morning. Please?"

"Ruth and Tom aren't any more stable than we are, and look at Abbie," Liam says. "They've done a great job with her."

Zayn breaks. He opens his eyes. He pushes his head down into the pillow to look up at Liam. "Babe." He touches Liam's neck. His hands are a little clumsy with sleep. "All they had to do to have a baby was have sex. If we could do it that way, one of us would have been knocked up by now."

"There's adoption. Hell, there are surrogates. We could–"

"I know. I know. I was–" Zayn rubs at his face. "You get my point."

Liam frowns. "So it would be more expensive for us. It's a baby. It would be expensive anyway. We'd figure it out."

For a long moment Zayn lays quiet with a hand over his eyes. Liam rolls over to sit up. Zayn moves to lay his head on Liam's lap. He sighs again, softer this time.

"I want to have a baby with you," he says. "Of course I do."

"Good because I am not afraid to sick both of our mothers on you."

Zayn chuckles and strokes his hand over the soft, pale hair on Liam's thigh. "But there's still time, Li. We have plenty of time to do that."

"I don't want to be retired when we send our kids off to university," Liam says.

He hates this conversation, hates the strange ache in his stomach that seems to grow the longer it goes on. But he doesn't want this to be something they talk about for ten years and never do, like getting a dog, like getting married properly. He doesn't want this to be something they regret not doing.

"Babe, I hate to break it to you, but we don't have a private pension plan. Retirement is not in the cards for either of us."

Liam tugs on his hair and Zayn laughs, digging his fingers into the back of Liam's knee, making his leg jump.

"We've got time, love," he promises. "And while we figure it out, we've got a niece to keep your biological clock from ticking. Or quiet ticking, at least? Quiet enough that I can sleep, maybe?"

Liam cards his fingers through Zayn's hair. "Yeah, alright. But we're talking about this later," he warns.

Zayn nods. He rolls off of Liam enough to let him scoot back down. He presses a kiss to Liam's shoulder. "I know," he says. "Trust me. I saw your mum put a baby name book in your stocking."


End file.
